From what I understand, Japan was not expecting, or asking for, an apology.
“I think that the U.S. and Japan have an extremely strong, very warm friendship. And I think what’s the most interesting thing that we can tell from this event is if we look at the Japanese handling of this event, the Japanese have been extremely obliging, extremely mature in their acceptance of the way that the White House is trying to frame this. So in other words, the White House is saying this is not an apology to Japan. This is an expression of shared respect and shared commitment to peace.”
“And the Japanese say, yes, absolutely, this is the case. And just think about what they might have said. They might have said, no, you should be apologizing to us. You dropped atomic weapons on us. So the fact that they are as obliging and cooperative in this as they have been really suggests this is a very committed, very strong partnership that we have.”
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